


Stay (Foundations)

by Cobrilee



Series: Sing A Song of Everything [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Comes Back, It's not a happy homecoming, M/M, Second Chances, post season five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7773841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cobrilee/pseuds/Cobrilee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek finally feels like he's ready to come home, and he's ready to give Stiles his all. Stiles isn't sure he's ready to do the same. (Part one of two. Find part two <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/7774078">here</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay (Foundations)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Week 3 of the Sterek Summer Spectacle, for team Summer Is Hot, But Sterek Is Hotter. This week's challenge is to write something inspired by a quote or lyrics. The lyrics I chose for this story are from the song [Who Do You Love?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6akoI65lys), by Marianas Trench. If you haven't heard it before, I highly encourage you to listen to it. It's gorgeous.

**Well I’ve been deep in this sleeplessness**

**I don’t know why**

**Just can’t get away from myself**

**When I get back on my feet I’ll blow this open wide**

**And carry me home in good health**

Derek stared up at the building that housed his-well,  _ the _ loft. Technically he still owned it, but he felt no kinship with it, not after three years of being away. He wondered if he’d even be able to tolerate the smell, the mustiness of disuse and age. He wondered if it still smelled like blood and anguish.

Shaking off the sense of unease crawling across his skin, Derek hauled himself out of his car. He was back to the Camaro, having left the Toyota in the garage when he set off on his “getting the hell out of Beacon Hills” jaunt that ended up spanning five continents, three years, and countless moments of healing; crack by crack, piece by piece. The only reason he’d returned to Beacon Hills was because he finally felt like he could stand up to the memories that wanted to tear him down.

_ You liar. That’s not the only reason. It’s not even the most important one. _

No. The most important was, and always would be, Stiles.

**God, it’s been so long wide awake that I feel like someone else**

**I miss the way that you saw me**

**Or maybe the way I saw myself**

He’d missed that kid more than he could possibly have imagined, and that was even knowing how in love with him he was the day that he left town. When Stiles had stared at him that day, nearly unable to tear himself away from the man he thought was dying, it had taken everything in Derek to send him to Scott. He hadn’t wanted Stiles to watch him die, and there was nothing he could do for Derek by that point anyway. But he could still help Scott, so Derek had made him go. He’d hoped that Stiles would take with him the memory of how Derek looked at him, and realize it was because he loved him.

Surviving, evolving physically, had brought about mental changes as well. Despite wanting Stiles more than he wanted his next breath, he kept his mouth shut. The last thing he would ever want to do would be to damage Stiles the way he’d been damaged. Derek refused to take away the last bit of childhood he could hold onto. He was seventeen, and Derek was twenty-three, and no. He hadn’t been stupid, had known that Stiles wanted him, too. Cared about him, even, and if Derek were to believe the evidence, respected and maybe even admired him. There was a lot of foundation there. But Stiles was too young, and Derek wouldn’t take that from him, and foundations could last for years until they were ready to be built upon.

Stiles was twenty now. Derek wondered if the foundation still existed, or if time and distance had weakened it. Had spread winding, spiderweb-like cracks through it, splintering it from the inside so that anything built upon it would crumble and fall.

It didn’t matter. The last three years had been spent preparing, readying himself to assemble them from the foundation up with his bare hands if he had to. He wasn’t walking away this time.

**But I came back to you broken**

**And I’ve been away too long**

**I hear the words I’ve spoken**

**And everything comes out wrong**

**Just can’t get this together**

**Can’t get where I belong**

Derek told himself he was ready for whatever obstacles he would have to face. He was determined, he was strong, and he wanted this.

And then he stepped inside his former home, and felt the world shift and slide out from underneath him.

“Oh my  _ God _ ! Derek!” Stiles bleated, clutching the towel around his hips as he gaped at Derek, who had apparently become the intruder. Derek’s eyes tracked every inch of the muscled, lithe figure that stood in his living room, dripping water all over the floor. Tiny rivulets streamed from his hair down his throat, over his biceps and hair-covered forearms, plopping off his fingertips. Stiles’ skin glistened, his muscles shifted under it, and Derek… Derek did what he did best.

Derek fucked it up.

“What the hell are you doing in  _ my _ home?” he snapped, and Stiles’ eyes narrowed into something dark and steely.

“You left three years ago,” he snapped right back. “This isn’t your home anymore. It’s mine.”

Derek reeled back from the words that punched at him like an alpha’s fist. “I don’t remember getting your monthly rent checks,” he countered sarcastically.

Stiles gave him a poison-sweet smile. “If I would have known where to send them, I would have,” he cooed. “But considering you dropped off the  _ face of the fucking planet _ , it didn’t make sense to send my money off into the void.”

“Why are you here?” Derek croaked out, finally shaking himself out of whatever need he had to sabotage the two of them before they even said hello.

Stiles watched him warily. “The place was going to shit. Mice and birds were taking up residence and so the pack cleaned it all up, then voted me to be the housesitter until you came home. Except you never did, and, well, I got comfortable here.” His gaze dropped at the last, refusing to meet Derek’s eyes. 

Derek glanced around, finally taking in something other than a towel-clad Stiles in his space. He could still see touches from his life there, the same somewhat bare aesthetic, only now Stiles’ life was encroaching on it. Stiles’ Mets jersey on the bed-fuck, he apparently was sleeping in the bed Derek had used-and Star Wars posters on the walls. The kitchen was cluttered and there was mail on the counter, and apparently Stiles was using the spiral staircase railing for a dryer because there were jeans looped over the top bar. 

He spun slowly, all the little things invading his senses, but more to the point, the scent of Stiles threatened to overwhelm him. It permeated every inch of the loft, and it surrounded him, drowning him. 

This was one time he was ready to go under.

“Are you back for good?” Stiles asked, and the quiet tenor of his voice didn’t hide the tremble underneath. There were nerves in his scent, and fear. Derek nearly choked on the sour stench just slightly balanced by the faint, sweet tang of hope.

Derek watched him for a few moments without answering. This time, he allowed his gaze to take in everything. The broad set of Stiles’ shoulders, the scars on his ribs, the white knuckles still gripping the edge of the towel, the pull between their bodies. “Yes,” he answered finally, and Stiles’ heart jumped.

“Why?” he asked bluntly, and Derek stared at him, startled. He hadn’t expected to be challenged on his reasons for coming back.

He could deflect. He could play dumb, cover his feelings with gruffness and half-truths like he always had before. He knew how to do that, it was as natural as breathing. What wasn’t natural was honesty. What wasn’t natural was laying himself bare when he had no clue if Stiles would laugh himself sick, yell himself hoarse, or simply kick him out, name on the deed be damned. 

Derek didn’t care. He’d spent three years waiting for  _ this  _ moment, waiting to come back to  _ this _ man, and he wouldn’t screw it up. Well, not any more than he had already. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and jumped.

“You. I came back for you.”

**I won’t come back to you broken**

**I won’t stay away too long**

**Even if words I’ve spoken seem to still come out wrong**

**I’ll get my shit back together**

**Get right where I belong**

Stiles stared at him, disbelief and anger warring for dominance on his face. “You really think it’s going to work like that?” He stalked forward, jabbing a finger into Derek’s chest, and Derek resisted the urge to flinch backward. Stiles’ hand loosened on the towel, like he’d forgotten he was anchoring it to keep it up around his hips, and Derek prayed it wouldn’t fall. Now was not the time for that kind of distraction. “You’ve been gone for three years, Derek.  _ Three. Fucking. Years _ . You don’t get to walk in here and act like it was three days. You don’t get to act like you expected me to wait for you.”

“I didn’t.” He did. There had been something special there, something both of them were aware of. If he’d given Stiles the slightest hint of encouragement, the child would have been wrapped around him like ribbons on a damn Maypole. But because he  _ was _ a child, Derek had withheld those hints of encouragement. He knew their connection was too special to be destroyed by distance. He also knew he’d been wrong many times before. Many, many times.

Stiles studied him warily. “I don’t believe that, but I’m not going to fight you on it.” The unspoken  _ right now  _ hung in the air, as did the,  _ because there are so many other things to fight you on _ . 

“You were so young,” Derek reminded him, voice unexpectedly harsh, even to him. “I didn't leave with any illusions you'd stay in the same place for the rest of your life. I didn't even expect you to still be in Beacon Hills.”

A sardonic smile twisted his lips. “Neither did I.” There was bitterness in his tone that spoke of a story, one he didn't seem inclined to share. “But here I am, and here I stay.” His eyes flitted around, making it clear that he meant the loft as much as he did Beacon Hills.

“Where do you expect me to go?” Derek countered, and Stiles barked out a rough, mirthless laugh.

“I’m sure you could find yourself a nice, cozy abandoned train station or condemned house,” he scoffed. “Assuming you stay at all.”

Derek snapped back from the words like they’d given him whiplash. “I told you I was staying, didn’t I?"

Rolling his eyes, Stiles finally turned his back and walked over to the low chest at the end of the bed, bending over and digging through it for clothes. He pointedly stared at Derek when he straightened, and Derek turned, keeping his eyes on the kitchen through the sounds of Stiles dressing behind him. “Yeah, you told me,” Stiles said eventually, and when Derek turned back, he was leaning against the back of the couch, ass settled on the edge with his hands wrapped around the cushion, his fingers white-knuckled. “You’ve told me a lot of things, a lot of times. You lied. Forgive me for not believing you when you say you’re not going to abandon m-us, again.” 

“I’m not,” Derek replied helplessly.

Stiles leveled a flinty glare at him. “Prove it.”

“How?”

His head dropped as he considered the words. “The next time things get tough, stay. The next time you feel useless, stay. The next time you think we’d be better off without you, stay. Every time you feel that urge to leave, stay. Just stay, Derek. Every day. Even when it’s hard.” He took a steadying breath and lifted his gaze again. “And don’t stay for me. Stay for all of us. Stay for you.”

Derek’s chest felt tight and liquid and aching as he stepped forward, encroaching on Stiles’ space. “And if I do?”

Stiles’s eyes never wavered from his. “Then maybe I might trust you enough to believe in you again. I might trust you enough to give you another chance.”

Derek held his breath, listening for the lie. He didn’t hear it. Stiles’ heartbeat was steady as he watched Derek, letting him know he had exactly one more shot at this. One more opportunity to not fuck things up.

He was going to take it.

He was going to run with it.

He was going to stay. 


End file.
